ABOUT the same time, or a little later, another shadow rose up upon Mr. Sandford’s life. It was like the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, like a mere film upon the blue sky at first. Perhaps the very first appearance of it—the faintest shadow of a shade upon the blue—arose on that day when Lord Okeham visited the studio and went away without giving any commission. Not that great personages had not come before with the same result; but that this time there had been supposed to be a distinct purpose in his visit beyond that of taking a cup of tea with the artist’s wife and daughters—and this purpose had not been carried out. It was not the cloud, but it was a sort of avant-coureur of the cloud, like the chill little momentary breath which sometimes heralds a storm. No storm followed, but the shadow grew. The next thing that made it really shape itself as a little more than a film was the fact of his Academy picture, the principal one of the year, coming back—without any explanation at all; not purchased, nor even with any application from the print-sellers about an engraving; simply coming back as it had gone into the exhibition. No doubt in the course of a long career such a thing as this, too, had happened before. But there was generally something to account for it, and the picture thus returned seldom dwelt long in the painter’s hands. This time, however, it subsided quite quietly into its place, lighting up the studio with a great deal of colour and interest—“a pleasure to see,” Mrs. Sandford said, who had often declared that the worst thing of being a painter’s wife was that she never liked to see the pictures go away. This might be very true, and it is quite possible that it was a pleasure to behold, standing on its easel against a wall which generally was enlivened only with the earliest of sketches, and against which a lay figure grinned and sprawled.
But the prospect was not quite agreeable to the painter. However cheerfully he went into his studio in the morning, he always grew grave when he came in front of that brilliant canvas. It was the “Black Prince at Limoges,” a picture full of life and action, with all the aid of mediæval costume and picturesque groups—such a picture as commanded everybody’s interest in Mr. Sandford’s younger days. He would go and stand before it for an hour at a time, trying to find some fault in the composition, or in the flesh tints, or the arrangements of the draperies. It took away his thoughts from the subject he was then engaged in working out. Sometimes he would put up his hand to separate one portion from another, sometimes divide it with a screen of paper, sometimes even alter an outline with chalk, or mellow a spot of colour with his brush. There was very little fault to be found with the picture. It carried out all the rules of composition to which the painter had been bred. The group of women which formed the central light was full of beauty; the sick warrior to whom they appealed was a marvel of strength and ferocity, made all the keener by the pallor of his illness. There was nothing to be said against the picture; except, perhaps, that, had not this been Mr. Sandford’s profession, there was no occasion for its existence at all.
When the mind has once been filled with a new idea it is astounding how many events occur to heighten it. Other distinguished visitors came to the studio, like Lord Okeham, and went away again, having left a great deal of praise and a little criticism, but nothing else, behind them. These were not, perhaps, of importance enough to have produced much effect at an ordinary moment, but they added to the general discouragement. Mr. Sandford smiled within himself at the mistakes the amateurs made, and the small amount of real knowledge which they showed; but when they were gone the smile became something like that which is generally and vulgarly described as being on the wrong side of the mouth. It was all very well to smile at the amateurs—but it was in the long run their taste, and not that of the heaven-born artist, which carried the day; and when a man takes away in his pocket the sum which ought to supply your balance at your banker’s, the sight of his back as he goes out at the door is not pleasant. Mr. Sandford had not come to that pitch yet; but he laughed no longer, and felt a certain ruefulness in his own look when one after another departed without a word of a commission. There were other things, too, not really of the slightest importance, which deepened the impression—the chatter of Jack’s friends, for instance, some of whom were young journalists, and talked the familiar jargon of critics. He came into the drawing-room one day during one of his wife’s teas, and found two or three young men, sprawling about with legs stretched out over the limited space, who were pulling to pieces a recent exhibition of the works of a Royal Academician. “You would think you had got among half a dozen different sorts of people dressed for private theatricals,” said one of the youths. “Old models got up as Shakespearian kings, and that sort of thing. You know, Mrs. Sandford; conventional groups trying to look as if they were historical.”
“I remember Mr. White’s pictures very well,” said Mrs. Sandford. “I used to think them beautiful. We all rushed to see what he had in the exhibition, upon the private view day, when I did not know so much about it as I do now.”
“Ah, yes; before you knew so much about it,” said the art authority. “You would think very differently to-day.”
“The whole school is like that,” said another. “Historical painting is gone out like historical novel-writing. The public is tired of costume. Life is too short for that sort of thing. We want a far more profound knowledge of the human figure and beauty in the abstract——”
“Stuff!” said Harry; “the British public doesn’t want your nudities, whatever you may think.”
“The British public likes babies, and sick girls getting well, and beautiful young gentlemen saying eternal adieux to lovely young ladies,” said one of the girls.
“To be sure, that sort of thing always goes on; but everybody must feel that in cultured circles there is a far greater sense of the beauty of colour for itself and art for art than in those ridiculous old days when the subject was everything——”
“You confuse me with your new lights,” said Mrs. Sandford. “I always did think there was a great deal in a good subject.”
“My dear Mrs. Sandford!” cried one of the young men, laughing; while another added, with the solemnity of his kind—
“People really did think so at one time. It was a genuine belief so long as it lasted. I am not one of those who laugh at faith so naïf. Whatever is true even for a time has a right to be respected,” said this profound young man.
Mr. Sandford came in at this point, having paused a little to enjoy the fun, as he said to himself. It was wonderful to hear how they chattered—these babes. “I am glad to hear that you are all so tolerant of the old fogeys,” he said, with a laugh as he showed himself. And one at least of the young men had the good taste to jump up as if he were ashamed of himself, and to take his legs out of the way.
“I suppose that’s the new creed that those fellows were giving forth,” he said to Jack, when the other young men were gone.
“Oh, I don’t know, sir,” said Jack, with an embarrassed laugh. “We all of us say our say.”
“But that is the say of most of you, I suppose,” said his father.
“Well, sir, I suppose every generation has its own standard. ‘The old order changeth,’ don’t you know—in art as well as in other things.”
“I see; and you think we know precious little about it,” said Mr. Sandford, with a joyless smile which curled his lip without obeying any mirthful impulse. He felt angry and unreasonably annoyed at the silly boys who knew so little. “But they know how to put that rubbish into words, and they get it published, and it affects the general opinion,” he said to himself, with perhaps a feeling, not unnatural in the circumstances, that he would like to drown those kittens with their miauling about things they knew nothing about. Angry moods, however, did not last long in Mr. Sandford’s mind. He went back to his studio and looked at the “Black Prince” in the light of these criticisms. And he found that some of the old courtiers in attendance on the sick warrior did look unfeignedly like old models, which indeed they were, and that there was more composition than life in the attitudes of the women. “I always thought that arm should come like this,” he said to himself, taking up his chalk.
One day about this time he had a visit from Daniells, the picture dealer, leading a millionaire—a newly-fledged one—who was making a gallery and buying right and left. Daniells, though he was very dubious about his h’s, was a good fellow, and always ready to stand by a friend. He was taking his millionaire a round of the studios, and especially to those in which there was something which had not “come off,” according to his phraseology. The millionaire was exceptionally ignorant and outspoken, expressing his own opinion freely. “What sort of a thing have we got here?” he said, walking up to the “Black Prince;” “uncommon nice lot of girls, certainly; but what are they all doing round the fellow out of the hospital? I say, is it something catching?” he cried, giving Mr. Sandford a dig with his elbow. Daniells laughed at this long and loudly, but it was the utmost the painter could do to conjure up a simple smile. He explained as well as he could that they were begging for life, and that the town was being sacked, a terrible event of which his visitor might have heard.
“Sacked,” said the millionaire; “you mean that they’re factory hands and have got the sack, or that they have been just told they’ve got to work short time. I understand that; and it shows how human nature’s just the same in all ages. But I can tell you that in Lancashire it’s a nice rowing he’d have got instead of all these sweet looks. They would not have let him off like that, don’t you think it. Wherever you get your women from, ours ain’t of that kind.”
Sandford tried to explain what kind of a sack it was, but he did not succeed, for the rich man was much pleased with his own view.
“It’s a fine picture,” said Daniells; “Mr. Sandford, he’s one of the very best of our modern masters, sir. He has got a great name, and beautiful his pictures look in a gallery with the others to set ’em off. Hung on the line in the Academy, and collected crowds. I shouldn’t ’a been surprised if they’d ’ad to put a rail round it like they did to Mr. Frith’s.”
He gave a wink at Mr. Sandford as he spoke, which made our poor painter sick.
“I’ve got one of Frith’s,” said the millionaire.
“You’ll ’ave got one of every modern artist worth counting when you’ve got Mr. Sandford’s,” said Daniells, with a pat upon the shoulder to his wealthy client. That gentleman turned round, putting his hands into his pockets.
“I’ve seen some pictures as I liked better,” he said.
“Yes, I know. You’ve seen that one o’ Millais’, a regular stunner; but, God bless you, that’s but one figger, and twice the money. Look at the work in that,” cried the dealer, turning his man round again, who gave the picture another condescending inspection from one corner to the other.
“I don’t deny there’s a deal of work in it,” he said, “if it’s painted fair with everything from the life; and I don’t mind taking it to complete my collection; but I’ll expect to have that considered in the price,” he added, turning once more on the painter. “You see, Mr. —— (What’s the gentleman’s name, Daniells?) I am not death on the picture for itself. It’s a fine showy picture, and I don’t doubt ’t’ll look well when it’s hung; but big things like that, as don’t tell their story plain, they’re not exactly my taste. However, it’s all right since Daniells says so. The only man I know that goes in for that sort of thing thinks all the world of Daniells. ‘Go to Daniells,’ he says, ‘and you’ll be all right.’ So I’ll take the picture, but I’ll expect a hundred or two off for ready money. I suppose there’s discount in all trades.”
“Say fifty off, and you’ll do very well, and get a fine thing cheap,” said Daniells.
Mr. Sandford’s countenance had darkened. He was very amiable, very courteous, much indisposed to bargaining, but he felt as if his customer had jumped upon him, and it was all he could do to contain himself. “I never make——” he began, with a little haughtiness most unusual to him; but before he had said the final words he caught Daniells’ eye, who was making anxious signs to him. The picture dealer twisted his face into a great many contortions. He raised his eyebrows, he moved his lips, he made all kinds of gestures; at last, under a pretence of looking at a sketch, he darted between Mr. Sandford and the other, and in a hoarse whisper said “Take it,” imperatively, in the painter’s ear.
Mr. Sandford came to an astonished pause. He looked at the uncouth patron of art, and at the dealer, and at the picture, in turn. It was on his lips to say that nothing would induce him to let the “Black Prince” go; but something stopped and chilled him—something, he could not tell what. He paused a moment, then retired suddenly to the back of the studio. “I’m not good at making bargains—I will leave myself,” he said, “in Mr. Daniells’ hands.”
“Ah, a bad system—a bad system. Every man ought to make his own bargains,” said the rich man.
Mr. Sandford did not listen. He began to turn over a portfolio of old sketches as if that were the most important thing in the world. He heard the voices murmur on, sometimes louder, sometimes lower, broken by more than one sharp exclamation, but restrained himself and did not interfere. Many thoughts went through his mind while he stooped over the big portfolio, and turned over, without seeing them, sketch after sketch. Why should he be bidden to “take it” in that imperative way? What did Daniells know which made him interfere with such a high hand? He was tempted again and again to turn round, to put a stop to the negotiation, to say, as he had the best right, “I’ll have none of this;” but he did not do it, though he could not even to himself explain why.
He found eventually that Daniells had sold the picture for him at a reduction of fifty guineas from the original price, which was a thing of no importance. He hated the bargain, but the little sacrifice of the money moved him not at all. He recovered his temper or his composure when the arrangement was completed, and smiled with a reserved acceptance of the millionaire’s invitation to “come to my place and see it hung,” as he showed the pair away. They were a well-matched pair, and Daniells was no doubt far better adapted to deal with each a man than a sensitive, proud artist, who did not like to have his toes trodden upon. After a while, indeed, Mr. Sandford felt himself quite able to smile at the incident, and shook off all his annoyance. He went in to luncheon with the cheque in his hand.
“I have sold the ‘Black Prince,’” he said, with a certain pleasure, even triumph, in his voice, remembering how Jack’s friends had scoffed, if not at the picture, at least at the school to which it belonged.
“Ah!” cried Mrs. Sandford, half pleased, half regretful. “I knew we should not have to give it house-room long.” She gave a glance round her as if she had heard something derogatory to the picture too.
“Who have you taken in and done for this time, father?” said Harry, who was given to banter.
“Was it that horrid man who came with Mr. Daniells?” cried Lizzie. “Oh, papa, I should not have thought you would have sold a nice picture to such a man.”
“Art-patrons are like gift-horses; we must not look them in the mouth,” said the painter. “There are quantities of h’s, no doubt, to be found about the studio; but if we stood upon that——”
“So long as he doesn’t leave out anything, either h’s or 0’s, in his cheque.”
Mr. Sandford felt slightly, unreasonably offended by any reference to the cheque. He gave it to his wife to send to the bank, with an annoyed apprehension that she would make some remark upon the fifty guineas which were left out. But Mrs. Sandford had not been his wife for thirty years without being able to read the annoyance in his face. And though she did not know what was its cause she respected it, and said not a word about the difference which her quick eye saw at once. Could it be that which had vexed Edward? she asked herself—he was not usually a man who counted his pounds in that way.
The sending off of the “Black Prince,” its packing and directing, and all the details of its departure, occupied him for some time. It was August, the beginning of holiday time, when, though never without a protest at the loss of the light days, even a painter idles a little. And the youngest boy had come from school, and they were all going to the seaside. Mr. Sandford did not like the bustle of the moment. He proposed to stay in town for a few days after the family, and join them when they had settled down in their new quarters. Before they went, however, he had an interview with one of those friends of Jack’s who were always about the house, and whose opinions on art were so different from Mr. Sandford’s, which gave another touch of excitement to the household. The young fellow wanted to marry Lizzie, as had been a long time apparent to everybody but her father. There was nothing to be said against him except that he had not much money; but Mr. Sandford thought that young Moulton looked startled when he had to inform him that Lizzie would have no fortune. “Of course that was not of the least consequence,” he said, but he gave his future father-in-law a curious and startled look.
“I think he was disappointed that there was no money,” the painter said afterwards to his wife.
“Oh, Edward! there is nothing mercenary about him!” said Mrs. Sandford; but she sighed and added, “If there only had been a little for her—just enough for her clothes. It makes such a difference to a young married woman. It is hard to have to ask your husband for everything.”
“Did you think so, Mary?” he asked, with a smile but a sense of pain.
“I—but we were not like ordinary people, we were just two fools together,” said the wife, with a smile which brightened all her face; “but,” she added, shaking her head, “we don’t marry our daughters like that.”
“If she is half as good to him as you have been to me——”
“Oh, don’t speak,” she said, putting up her hand to stop his mouth. “Lance Moulton can never be the hundredth part so good as my husband.” But she stopped after this little outburst, and laughed, and again shaking her head, repeated, “But we don’t marry our daughters like that.”
He felt inclined to ask, but did not, why?
When they all went away Mr. Sandford felt a little lonely, left by himself in the house, and perhaps it was that as much as anything else that set him thinking again. His wife had pressed the question of what Lizzie would want if she married young Moulton, who was only a journalist, on several occasions, until at last they had both decided that a small allowance might be made to her in place of a fortune.
“Fifty pounds is the interest of a thousand, and that is what she will have when we die,” Mrs. Sandford said, who was not learned in per cents. “I think we might give her fifty pounds a year, Edward.”
“Fifty pounds will not do much good,” he said.
“Not in their housekeeping, perhaps; but to have even fifty pounds will be a great thing for her. It will make her so much more comfortable.” Thus they concluded the matter between them, though not without a certain hesitation on Mr. Sandford’s part. It was strange that he should hesitate. He had always been so liberal, ready to give. There was no reason why he should take fright now. There was the millionaire’s cheque for the “Black Prince,” which had just been paid into the bank, leaving a comfortable balance to their credit. There was no pressure of any kind for the moment. To those who had known what it was to await their next payment very anxiously in order to pay very pressing debts, and had seen the little stream of money flowing, flowing away, till it almost seemed to be on the point of disappearing altogether, the ease of having a considerable sum to their credit was indescribable; but Mrs. Sandford was more and more wrapped up in the children, and though never indifferent, yet a little detached in every-day thought and action from her husband. She did not ask him as usual about his commissions and his future work. She seemed altogether at ease in her mind about everything that was not the boys and the girls.